faithfull grave Thus Lazarus was carried out of town For 't is our foes chief art By distance all good objects first to drown And then besiege the heart But I will be my own Deaths-head and though The flatt'rer say I live Because Incertainties we cannot know Be sure not to believe Peace MY Soul there is a Countrie Far beyond the stars Where stands a winged Centrie All skilfull in the wars There above noise and danger Sweet peace sits crown'd with smiles And one born in a Manger Commands the Beauteous files He is thy gracious friend And O my Soul awake Did in pure love descend To die here for thy sake If thou canst get but thither There growes the flowre of peace The Rose that cannot wither Thy fortresse and thy ease Leave then thy foolish ranges For none can thee secure But one who never changes Thy God thy life thy Cure The Passion O My chief good My dear dear God! When thy blest bloud Did Issue forth forc'd by the Rod What pain didst thou Feel in each blow How didst thou weep And thy self steep In thy own precious saving teares What cruell smart Did teare thy heart How didst thou grone it In the spirit O thou whom my soul Loves and feares 2. Most blessed Vine Whose juice so good I feel as Wine But thy faire branches felt as bloud How wert thou prest To be my feast In what deep anguish Didst thou languish What springs of Sweat and bloud did drown thee How in one path Did the full wrath Of thy great Father Crowd and gather Doubling thy griefs when none would own thee 3. How did the weight Of all our sinnes And death unite To wrench and Rack thy blessed limbes How pale and bloudie Lookt thy Body How bruis'd and broke With every stroke How meek and patient was thy spirit How didst thou cry And grone on high Father forgive And let them live I dye to make my foes inherit 4. O blessed Lamb That took'st my sinne That took'st my shame How shall thy dust thy praises sing I would I were One hearty tear One constant spring Then would I bring Thee two small mites and be at strife Which should most vie My heart or eye Teaching my years In smiles and tears To weep to sing thy Death my Life Rom. Cap. 8. ver. 19. Etenim res Creatae exerto Capite observantes expectant revelationem Filiorum Dei ANd do they so have they a Sense Of ought but Influence Can they their heads lift and expect And grone too why th' Elect Can do no more my volumes sed They were all dull and dead They judg'd them senslesse and their state Wholly Inanimate Go go Seal up thy looks And burn thy books 2. I would I were a stone or tree Or flowre by pedigree Or some poor high-way herb or Spring To flow or bird to sing Then should I tyed to one sure state All day expect my date But I am sadly loose and stray A giddy blast each way O let me not thus range Thou canst not change 3. Sometimes I fit with thee and tarry An hour or so then vary Thy other Creatures in this Scene Thee only aym and mean Some rise to seek thee and with heads Erect peep from their beds Others whose birth is in the tomb And cannot quit the womb Sigh there and grone for thee Their liberty 4. O let not me do lesse shall they Watch while I sleep or play Shall I thy mercies still abuse With fancies friends or newes O brook it not thy bloud is mine And my soul should be thine O brook it not why wilt thou stop After whole showres one drop Sure thou wilt joy to see Thy sheep with thee The Relapse MY God how gracious art thou I had slipt Almost to hell And on the verge of that dark dreadful pit Did hear them yell But O thy love thy rich almighty love That sav'd my soul And checkt their furie when I saw them move And heard them howl O my sole Comfort take no more these wayes This hideous path And I wil mend my own without delayes Cease thou thy wrath I have deserv'd a thick Egyptian damp Dark as my deeds Should mist within me and put out that lamp Thy spirit feeds A darting Conscience full of stabs and fears No shade but Yewgh Sullen and sad Ecclipses Cloudie spheres These are my due But he that with his bloud a price too deere My scores did pay Bid me by vertue from him chalenge here The brightest day Sweet downie thoughts soft Lilly-shades Calm streams Joyes full and true Fresh spicie mornings and eternal beams These are his due The Resolve I Have consider'd it and find A longer stay Is but excus'd neglect To mind One path and stray Into another or to none Cannot be love When shal that traveller come home That will not move If thou wouldst thither linger not Catch at the place Tell youth and beauty they must rot They 'r but a Case Loose parcell'd hearts wil freeze The Sun With scatter'd locks Scarce warms but by contraction Can heat rocks Call in thy Powers run and reach Home with the light Be there before the shadows stretch And Span up night Follow the Cry no more there is An ancient way All strewed with flowres and happiness And fresh as May There turn and turn no more Let wits Smile at fair eies Or lips But who there weeping sits Hath got the Prize The Match DEar friend whose holy ever-living lines Have done much good To many and have checkt my blood My fierce wild blood that still heaves and inclines But is still tam'd By those bright fires which thee inflam'd Here I joyn hands and thrust my stubborn heart Into thy Deed There from no Duties to be freed And if hereafter youth or folly thwart And claim their share Here I renounce the pois'nous ware ii ACcept dread Lord the poor Oblation It is but poore Yet through thy Mercies may be more O thou that canst not wish my souls damnation Afford me life And save me from all inward strife Two Lifes I hold from thee my gracious Lord Both cost thee deer For one I am thy Tenant here The other the true life in the next world And endless is O let me still mind that in this To thee therefore my Thoughts Words Actions I do resign Thy will in all be done not mine Settle my house and shut out all distractions That may unknit My heart and thee planted in it Lord Jesu thou didst bow thy blessed head Upon a tree O do as much now unto me O hear and heal thy servant Lord strike dead All lusts in me Who onely wish life to serve thee Suffer no more this dust to overflow And drown my eies But seal or pin them to thy skies And let this grain which here in tears I sow Though dead and sick Through thy Increase grow new and quick Rules and Lessons WHen first thy Eies unveil give thy Soul
Authoris de se Emblema TEntasti fateor sine vulnere soepius me Consultū voluit Vox sine voce frequens Ambivit placido divinior aur a meatu Et frustrà sancto murmure praemonuit Sur dus eram mutusqueSilex Tu quanta tuorum Cura tibi est aliâ das renovare viâ Permutas Curam Iamque irritatus Amorem Posse negas vim Vi superare paras Accedis propior molemque Saxea rumpis Pectora fitqueCaro quod fuit ante Lapis En lacerum Coelosque tuos ardentia tandem Fragmenta liquidas ex Adamante genas Sic olim undantes Petras Scopulosque vomentes Curâsti O populi providus usque tui Quam Miranda tibi manus est Moriendo revixi Et fractas jam sum ditior inter opes Silex Scintillans or SACRED POEMS and Private Eiaculations By Henry Vaughan Silurist LONDON Printed by T W. for H. Blunden at ye Castle in Cornehill 1650 The Dedication MY God thou that didst dye for me These thy deaths fruits I offer thee Death that to me was life and light But darke and deep pangs to thy sight Some drops of thy all-quickning bloud Fell on my heart these made it bud And put forth thus though Lord before The ground was curs'd and void of store Indeed I had some here to hire Which long resisted thy desire That ston'd thy Servants and did move To have thee murther'd for thy Love But Lord I have expell'd them and so bent Begge thou wouldst take thy Tenants Rent Silex Scintillans c. Regeneration A Ward and still in bonds one day I stole abroad It was high-spring and all the way Primros'd and hung with shade Yet was it frost within And surly winds Blasted my infant buds and sinne Like Clouds ecclips'd my mind 2. Storm'd thus I straight perceiv'd my spring Meere stage and show My walke a monstrous mountain'd thing Rough-cast with Rocks and snow And as a Pilgrims Eye Far from reliefe Measures the melancholy skye Then drops and rains for griefe 3. So sigh'd I upwards still at last 'Twixt steps and falls I reach'd the pinacle where plac'd I found a paire of scales I tooke them up and layd In th'one late paines The other smoake and pleasures weigh'd But prov'd the heavier graines 4. With that some cryed Away straight I Obey'd and led Full East a faire fresh field could spy Some call'd it Jacobs Bed A Virgin-soile which no Rude feet ere trod Where since he stept there only go Prophets and friends of God 5. Here I repos'd but scarse well set A grove descryed Of stately height whose branches met And mixt on every side I entred and once in Amaz'd to see 't Found all was chang'd and a new spring Did all my senses greet 6. The unthrift Sunne shot vitall gold A thousand peeces And heaven its azure did unfold Checqur'd with snowie fleeces The aire was all in spice And every bush A garland wore Thus fed my Eyes But all the Eare lay hush 7. Only a little Fountain lent Some use for Eares And on the dumbe shades language spent The Musick of her teares I drew her neere and found The Cisterne full Of divers stones some bright and round Others ill-shap'd and dull 8. The first pray marke as quick as light Danc'd through the floud But th' last more heavy then the night Nail'd to the Center stood I wonder'd much but tyr'd At last with thought My restless Eye that still desir'd As strange an object brought 9. It was a banke of flowers where I descried Though 't was mid-day Some fast asleepe others broad-eyed And taking in the Ray Here musing long I heard A rushing wind Which still increas'd but whence it stirr'd No where I could not find 10. I turn'd me round and to each shade Dispatch'd an Eye To see if any leafe had made Least motion or Reply But while I listning sought My mind to ease By knowing where 't was or where not It whisper'd where I please Lord then said I On me one breath And let me dye before my death Cant. Cap. 5. ver. 17. Arise O North and come thou South-wind and blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out Death A Dialogue Soule 'T Is a sad Land that in one day Hath dull'd thee thus when death shall freeze Thy bloud to Ice and thou must stay Tenant for Yeares and Centuries How wilt thou brook 't Body I cannot tell But if all sence wings not with thee And something still be left the dead I 'le wish my Curtaines off to free Me from so darke and sad a bed A neast of nights a gloomie sphere Where shadowes thicken and the Cloud Sits on the Suns brow all the yeare And nothing moves without a shrowd Soule 'T is so But as thou sawest that night Wee travell'd in our first attempts Were dull and blind but Custome straight Our feares and falls brought to contempt Then when the gastly twelve was past We breath'd still for a blushing East And bad the lazie Sunne make hast And on sure hopes though long did feast But when we saw the Clouds to crack And in those Cranies light appear'd We thought the day then was not slack And pleas'd our selves with what wee feard Just so it is in death But thou Shalt in thy mothers bosome sleepe Whilst I each minute grone to know How neere Redemption creepes Then shall wee meet to mixe again and met 'T is last good-night our Sunne shall never set Job Cap 10. ver. 21.22 Before I goe whence I shall not returne even to the land of darknesse and the shadow of death A Land of darknesse as darkenesse it selfe and of the shadow of death without any order and where the light is as darknesse Resurrection and Immortality Heb. cap. 10. ve 20. By that new and living way which he hath prepared for us through the veile which is his flesh Body 1. OFt have I seen when that renewing breath That binds and loosens death Inspir'd a quickning power through the dead Creatures a bed Some drowsie silk-worme creepe From that long sleepe And in weake infant hummings chime and knell About her silent Cell Untill at last full with the vitall Ray She wing'd away And proud with life and sence Heav'ns rich Expence Esteem'd vaine things of two whole Elements As meane and span-extents Shall I then thinke such providence will be Lesse friend to me Or that he can endure to be unjust Who keeps his Covenant even with our dust Soule 2. Poore querulous handfull was 't for this I taught thee all that is Unbowel'd nature shew'd thee her recruits And Change of suits And how of death we make A meere mistake For no thing can to Nothing fall but still Incorporates by skill And then returns and from the wombe of things Such treasure brings As Phenix-like renew'th Both life and youth For a preserving spirit doth still passe Untainted through this Masse Which doth resolve produce and ripen
Had some glimpse of his birth He saw Heaven o'r his head and knew from whence He came condemned hither And as first Love draws strongest so from hence His mind sure progress'd thither Things here were strange unto him Swet and till All was a thorn or weed Nor did those last but like himself dyed still As soon as they did Seed They seem'd to quarrel with him for that Act That fel him foyl'd them all He drew the Curse upon the world and Crackt The whole frame with his fall This made him long for home as loath to stay With murmurers and foes He sigh'd for Eden and would often say Ah! what bright days were those Nor was Heav'n cold unto him for each day The vally or the Mountain Afforded visits and still Paradise lay In some green shade or fountain Angels lay Leiger here Each Bush and Cel Each Oke and high-way knew them Walk but the fields or sit down at some wil And he was sure to view them Almighty Love where art thou now mad man Sits down and freezeth on He raves and swears to stir nor fire nor fan But bids the thread be spun I see thy Curtains are Close-drawn Thy bow Looks dim too in the Cloud Sin triumphs still and man is sunk below The Center and his shrowd All 's in deep sleep and night Thick darknes lyes And hatcheth o'r thy people But hark what trumpets that what Angel cries Arise Thrust in thy sickle H. Scriptures WElcome dear book souls Joy and food The feast Of Spirits Heav'n extracted lyes in thee Thou art lifes Charter The Doves spotless neast Where souls are hatch'd unto Eternitie In thee the hidden stone the Manna lies Thou art the great Elixir rare and Choice The Key that opens to all Mysteries The Word in Characters God in the Voice O that I had deep Cut in my hard heart Each line in thee Then would I plead in groans Of my Lords penning and by sweetest Art Return upon himself the Law and Stones Read here my faults are thine This Book and I Will tell thee so Sweet Saviour thou didst dye Unprofitablenes HOw rich O Lord how fresh thy visits are 'T was but Just now my bleak leaves hopeless hung Sullyed with dust and mud Each snarling blast shot through me and did share Their Youth and beauty Cold showres nipt and wrung Their spiciness and bloud But since thou didst in one sweet glance survey Their sad decays I flourish and once more Breath all perfumes and spice I smell a dew like Myrrh and all the day Wear in my bosome a full Sun such store Hath one beame from thy Eys But ah my God! what fruit hast thou of this What one poor leaf did ever I yet fall To wait upon thy wreath Thus thou all day a thankless weed doest dress And when th' hast done a stench or fog is all The odour I bequeath CHRISTS Nativity AWake glad heart get up and Sing It is the Birth-day of thy King Awake awake The Sun doth shake Light from his locks and all the way Breathing Perfumes doth spice the day 2. Awak awak heark how th' wood rings Winds whisper and the busie springs A Consort make A wake awake Man is their high-priest and should rise To offer up the sacrifice 3. I would I were some Bird or Star Flutt'ring in woods or lifted far Above this Inne And Rode of sin Then either Star or Bird should be Shining or singing still to thee 4. I would I had in my best part Fit Roomes for thee or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was But I am all filth and obscene Yet if thou wilt thou canst make clean 5. Sweet Jesu will then Let no more This Leper haunt and soyl thy door Cure him Ease him O release him And let once more by mystick birth The Lord of life be borne in Earth II. HOw kind is heav'n to man If here One sinner doth amend Strait there is Joy and ev'ry sphere In musick doth Contend And shall we then no voices lift Are mercy and salvation Not worth our thanks Is life a gift Of no more acceptation Shal he that did come down from thence And here for us was slain Shal he be now cast off no sense Of all his woes remain Can neither Love nor suff'rings bind Are we all stone and Earth Neither his bloudy passions mind Nor one day blesse his birth Alas my God! Thy birth now here Must not be numbred in the year The Check PEace peace I blush to hear thee when thou art A dusty story A speechlesse heap and in the midst my heart In the same livery drest Lyes tame as all the rest When six years thence digg'd up some youthfull Eie Seeks there for Symmetry But finding none shal leave thee to the wind Or the next foot to Crush Scatt'ring thy kind And humble dust tell then dear flesh Where is thy glory 2. As he that in the midst of day Expects The hideous night Sleeps not but shaking off sloth and neglects Works with the Sun and sets Paying the day its debts That for Repose and darknes bound he might Rest from the fears i' th' night So should we too All things teach us to die And point us out the way While we passe by And mind it not play not away Thy glimpse of light 3. View thy fore-runners Creatures giv'n to be Thy youths Companions Take their leave and die Birds beasts each tree All that have growth or breath Have one large language Death O then play not but strive to him who Can Make these sad shades pure Sun Turning their mists to beams their damps to day Whose pow'r doth so excell As to make Clay A spirit and true glory dwell In dust and stones 4. Heark how he doth Invite thee with what voice Of Love and sorrow He begs and Calls O that in these thy days Thou knew'st but thy own good Shall not the Crys of bloud Of Gods own bloud awake thet He bids beware Of drunknes surfeits Care But thou sleep'st on wher 's now thy protestation Thy Lines thy Love Away Redeem the day The day that gives no observation Perhaps to morrow Disorder and frailty WHen first thou didst even from the grave And womb of darknes becken out My brutish soul and to thy slave Becam'st thy self both guide and Scout Even from that hour Thou gotst my heart And though here tost By winds and bit with frost I pine and shrink Breaking the link 'Twixt thee and me And oftimes creep Into th' old silence and dead sleep Quitting thy way All the long day Yet sure my God! I love thee most Alas thy love 2. I threaten heaven and from my Cell Of Clay and frailty break and bud Touch'd by thy fire and breath Thy bloud Too is my Dew and springing wel But while I grow And stretch to thee ayming at all Thy stars and spangled hall Each fly doth tast Poyson and blast My yielding leaves sometimes
shade Awake awake And in his Resurrection partake Who on this day that thou might'st rise as he Rose up and cancell'd two deaths due to thee Awake awake and like the Sun disperse All mists that would usurp this day Where are thy Palmes thy branches and thy verse Hosanna heark why doest thou stay Arise arise And with his healing bloud anoint thine Eys Thy inward Eys his bloud will cure thy mind Whose spittle only could restore the blind Easter Hymn DEath and darkness get you packing Nothing now to man is lacking All your triumphs now are ended And what Adam marr'd is mended Graves are beds now for the weary Death a nap to wake more merry Youth now full of pious duty Seeks in thee for perfect beauty The weak and aged tir'd with length Of daies from thee look for new strength And Infants with thy pangs Contest As pleasant as if with the brest Then unto him who thus hath thrown Even to Contempt thy kingdome down And by his blood did us advance Unto his own Inheritance To him be glory power praise From this unto the last of daies The Holy Communion WElcome sweet and sacred feast welcome life Dead I was and deep in trouble But grace and blessings came with thee so rife That they have quicken'd even drie stubble Thus soules their bodies animate And thus at first when things were rude Dark void and Crude They by thy Word their beauty had and date All were by thee And stil must be Nothing that is or lives But hath his Quicknings and reprieves As thy hand opes or shuts Healings and Cuts Darkness and day-light life and death Are but meer leaves turn'd by thy breath Spirits without thee die And blackness sits On the divinest wits As on the Sun Ecclipses lie But that great darkness at thy death When the veyl broke with thy last breath Did make us see The way to thee And now by these sure sacred ties After thy blood Our sov'rain good Had clear'd our eies And given us sight Thou dost unto thy self betroth Our souls and bodies both In everlasting light Was 't not enough that thou hadst payd the price And given us eies When we had none but thou must also take Us by the hand And keep us still awake When we would sleep Or from thee creep Who without thee cannot stand Was 't not enough to lose thy breath And blood by an accursed death But thou must also leave To us that did bereave Thee of them both these seals the means That should both cleanse And keep us so Who wrought thy wo O rose of Sharon O the Lilly Of the valley How art thou now thy flock to keep Become both food and Shepheard to thy sheep Psalm 121. UP to those bright and gladsome hils Whence flowes my weal and mirth I look and sigh for him who fils Unseen both heaven and earth He is alone my help and hope that I shall not be moved His watchful Eye is ever ope And guardeth his beloved The glorious God is my sole stay He is my Sun and shade The cold by night the heat by day Neither shall me invade He keeps me from the spite of foes Doth all their plots controul And is a shield not reckoning those Unto my very soul Whether abroad amidst the Crowd Or els within my door He is my Pillar and my Cloud Now and for evermore Affliction PEace peace It is not so Thou doest miscall Thy Physick Pils that change Thy sick Accessions into setled health This is the great Elixir that turns gall To wine and sweetness Poverty to wealth And brings man home when he doth range Did not he who ordain'd the day Ordain night too And in the greater world display What in the lesser he would do All flesh is Clay thou know'st and but that God Doth use his rod And by a fruitfull Change of frosts and showres Cherish and bind thy pow'rs Thou wouldst to weeds and thistles quite disperse And be more wild than is thy verse Sickness is wholsome and Crosses are but curbs To check the mule unruly man They are heavens husbandry the famous fan Purging the floor which Chaff disturbs Were all the year one constant Sun-shine wee should have no flowres All would be drought and leanness not a tree would make us bowres Beauty consists in colours and that 's best Which is not fixt but flies and flowes The settled Red is dull and whites that rest Something of sickness would disclose Vicissitude plaies all the game nothing that stirrs Or hath a name But waits upon this wheel Kingdomes too have their Physick and for steel Exchange their peace and furrs Thus doth God Key disorder'd man which none else can Tuning his brest to rise or fall And by a sacred needfull art Like strings stretch ev'ry part Making the whole most Musicall The Tempest HOw is man parcell'd out how ev'ry hour Shews him himself or somthing he should see This late long heaâ— may his Instruction be And tempests have more in them than a showr When nature on her bosome saw Her Infants die And all her flowres wither'd to straw Her brests grown dry She made the Earth their nurse tomb Sigh to the sky ' Til to those sighes fetch'd from her womb Rain did reply So in the midst of all her scars And faint requests Her Earnest sighes procur'd her tears And fill'd her brests O that man could do so that he would hear The world read to him all the vast expence In the Creation shed and slav'd to sence Makes up but lectures for his eie and ear Sure mighty love foreseeing the discent Of this poor Creature by a gracious art Hid in these low things snares to gain his heart And layd surprizes in each Element All things here shew him heaven waters that fall Chide and fly up Mists of corruptest some Quit their first beds mount trees herbs flowres all Strive upwards stil and point him the way home How do they cast off grossness only Earth And Man like Issachar in lodes delight Water 's refin'd to Motion Aire to Light Fire to all * three but man hath no such mirth Plants in the root with Earth do most Comply Their Leafs with water and humiditie The Flowres to air draw neer and subtiltie And seeds a kinred fire have with the sky All have their keyes and set ascents but man Though he knows these and hath more of his own Sleeps at the ladders foot alas what can These new discoveries do except they drown Thus groveling in the shade and darkness he Sinks to a dead oblivion and though all He sees like Pyramids shoot from this ball And less'ning still grow up invisibly Yet hugs he stil his durt The stuffe he wears And painted trimming take down both his eies Heaven hath less beauty than the dust he spies And money better musick than the Spheres Life 's but a blast he knows it what shal straw And bul-rush-fetters temper